By Robbie Hughes, Founder and CEO, Lumeon

Lumeon is proud to have been selected out of 750 international applicants to participate in the 3rd annual GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summit, held June 5th in Saint Louis, Missouri. The 16 companies that were invited to participate hailed from Israel, the U.K., Canada, Sweden, and Portugal.

Whilst most companies focused on an innovative, single solution offer — ranging from AI that helps recognize early-stage prostate and breast cancer to devices that train clinicians to function better in high-stress situations — Lumeon was able to present an enterprise-ready system of engagement, to enable providers to deliver the right care, for the right patients, at the right time.

I was honored to make a six-minute presentation to the 80 attendees, on Lumeon’s role in solving the pervasive problem of unwarranted variation — that is, notable and unnecessary inconsistencies in how care is delivered.

An accepted way to prevent unwarranted variation is the use of care pathways and guidelines, however implementation of these on an enterprise basis has proven difficult and expensive due to a lack of suitable tooling. Technology like Lumeon’s care pathway management (CPM) software makes the scaling of pathways extremely efficient as it automates and systematizes them to promote streamlined and consistent care for all patients.

It’s an idea that found a very receptive audience at the GlobalSTL Summit. When asked “what would make you jump out of your chair?”, two of the event’s speakers responded with the same answer: enterprise-wide, automation-enabled management of the flow of patients to ensure they get the right care at the right time.

Attitudes like this are becoming more pervasive in the healthcare market, as reflected in realities that were evident at the Summit:

  • Point solutions are no longer acceptable in the market.
  • Systems of record are being supplemented with systems of engagement.
  • Payers are thinking more about care delivery rather than just claims management.
  • A solution that can span multiple disciplines and settings is needed.

All health systems these days are looking for impactful and disruptive change. With the U.S. population aging rapidly into Medicare, change must focus on driving better clinical outcomes while reducing costs, which requires new business models and innovative technology. Innovation must happen fast and have meaningful impact.

In this tightening market, health systems need to collaborate to provide better and more comprehensive care, and GlobalSTL encourages them to look abroad, to the U.K. and other markets for their healthcare technology, as these countries have often developed more advanced innovations on this front than their U.S. counterparts.

Lumeon’s invitation to the Summit demonstrates a real need for enterprise-wide innovation, that delivers more than just a point solution in a single department. Having made the investment in EMRs, health systems are now faced with the very real problem of how to deliver the most value from them, and to turn them from logbooks into the GPS that healthcare now needs.

Ten years of experience deploying pathways at scale has shown us that the fastest way to increase patient throughput and improve the care experience is by tackling patient activation and nurse workstreams. Other companies that start and end with purely “clinical” decision-making face a lengthy process to modify physician behavior while failing to address the operational workflows that underpin it. Lumeon can rapidly deploy simple starter pathways that virtualize and automate patient and nurse-led activities, adding huge value to hospitals without disrupting physician workflow. Once these pillars are in place, there’s a solid base from which to approach physician decision-making.

CPM is the solution healthcare providers need. The GlobalSTL Summit’s audience now knows that, as does an ever-growing share of U.S. providers. As the healthcare landscape continues to change, CPM will be seen less and less as an optional innovation and increasingly as a necessity for effective, timely care delivery to guarantee improved outcomes.